LAWRENCEVILLE — Jordan Kaplan called it the biggest game he’d ever played in

With just 40.4 seconds left the Lawrenceville forward scored his most important goal.

Kaplan took a pass from the left wing and found the back of the net to give the Big Red a thrilling, 5-4 win last night over neighboring Princeton Day in a classic game witnessed by nearly 1,500 spectators.

Lawrenceville (6-6) four times enjoyed a one-goal lead, but each time the Panthers (12-2) battled back to knot the score.

Then Kaplan handed the bragging rights to the Big Red.

“It was the last minute of play and things were getting crazy,’’ said Kaplan. “I saw Tylar Novy coming down the wing with the puck. Coach (Etienne Bilodeau) is always telling me to go hard to the net. That’s what I did and I put the puck in and you can’t ask for a better win than that. This is the biggest game I ever played in and this is unreal.’’

It was also a bitter defeat for Princeton Day.

“It’s two teams that respect one another and respect the tradition of the rivalry,’’ said PDS coach Scott Bertoli. “You have a rink that is jammed to capacity and it was a fun environment. It’s a game of mistakes and it’s unfortunate it was us. I’m so proud of the way the kids competed.’’

It was competitive from the opening face-off and it lasted the full 54 minutes.

“I told the boys in pregame that they are lucky,’’ Bilodeau said. “I told them they are lucky to play in a game of this magnitude. Between two schools that are close by. There were more people here before the warm-ups then we’ve had all season.’’

The game lived up to the hype.Besides Kaplan, who also had two assists, Lawrenceville got goals from John Kowalewski, Misha Mrotchek, Antoine Crepin-Heroux and Stephen Clarke. Kowalewski, Clarke, Mrotchek, Alex England and Misha Song had assists.

PDS had Conrad Denise, Sean Timmons, Rob Colton and Ross Colton tally goals. All four along with Connor Bitterman had assists.

“We’re proud of the kids because we had a lot of adversity going into the game,’’ said Bilodeau. “We knew this was going to be a close one. We never trailed, but we were never able to push that lead. We traded a lot of chances, Burt, Jordan (Kaplan) has been on fire and playing well.’’

Kaplan and his teammates read all the Social Media stuff going back and forth about which team is the best.

“This is a huge win for especially with all the stuff before,’’ said Kaplan. “There was all kinds of Facebook stuff about who was going to win and we were able to play through all that.’’

The Big Red controlled the first period with goals from Mrotchek and Kowalewski sandwiched around a score by PDS’ Denise. The physical play picked up in the second period and it was the Panther scoring twice with a Lawrenceville in between for a 3-3 tie at intermission.

Timmons and Ross Colton accounted for the Panthers score and Clarke had the Big Red score.

“It wasn’t our best game,’’ said Bertoli. “The kids played hard. We were down and continued to battle back. We are used to playing out in front, but I was confident that we’d score four or five. I just never figured we’d give up five.’’

Crepin-Heroux gave Lawrenceville the lead just 16 seconds into the final period and then with :36 left Rob Colton’s power play goals tied it and set the stage for Kaplan’s heroics.

“I was so excited when it went in,’’ said Kaplan. “That win is a huge boost for me and my teammates. We always knew we were going to get that last goal and that we were going to win the game.’’

It was the biggest game of his career and no doubt one of the biggest moments in Lawrenceville hockey.